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| About to ride along Zion-Mt Carmel Highway |
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| Checkerboard Mesa |
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| Zion has a diverse range of flora |
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| The famous Angel's Landing |
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| Pathway to The Narrows |
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| Cruisin' Along the Zion-Mt Carmel Scenic Highway |
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| The Great White Throne, with Angel's Landing to the visual right |
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| The Court of the Three Patriarchs |
As with
Bryce Canyon National Park, your best bet to quickly and efficiently spend a productive day in Zion National Park is to hop on their
shuttles.
PARKING: You have to find parking at either the Visitor's Center or along the road in the town literally outside of Zion's South Entrance. If you park in the town, simply find a shuttle stop somewhere along the way towards the park (I saw several just driving up to the entrance). I will say this, there was a sign in front of the Visitor's Center saying that their parking lot was full. This was not true! You are still allowed to drive into the Visitor's Center, which we decided to do and promptly realized that there was plenty of parking still available. My guess is that the rangers didn't want backed up traffic in the parking lot.
HOW IT WORKS: There are two shuttle stops at each point, with each one across the road from the other. One keeps bringing you further into the park and the other back towards the Visitor Center (whilst making a stop at each point so people can get on and off), so you will always have the option to go back or forth. The only place with one stop is The Temple of Sinawava, which is the last stop, so you can only go back. There is about a 15 minute wait between each shuttle. We had absolutely no problem with finding seats once back on a shuttle or waiting for the next shuttle.
WHAT TO DO: There are several outlook points, like the Court of the Three Patriarchs and Big Bend where you can take fantastic pictures in front of Zion's icons, like
The Great White Throne and the
Three Patriarchs. If you would like to maximize your experience, then allow me to encourage you to hop onto at least one or two of the trails. They range from easy to moderate to difficult. Believe me, it's worth it. We did the
Gateway to the Narrows Trail, which was super easy (albeit busy with people) but it was paved with cement, so it wasn't super strenuous.
-OR-
ZION-MT. CARMEL HIGHWAY: If you are truly strapped for time, but still want to have a taste of Zion, then your next option would simply be to hop onto the Zion-Mt. Carmel Highway in your car. I have written a whole blog post on this experience, if you would like some more details.The Highway connects the South and East entrances into the park and is truly scenic. Once you enter the park and go past the Visitor Center to your right and then the Zion Human History Museum to your left, you will be forced to make a right and there you are. In fact, if you do have sometime, it is very possible to do both this and the shuttle one day, like we did.
Best Wishes,
The Pseudo Southerner
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